When a field is marked as invalid and your are entering a valid value 
as soon as the value is valid and validate runs the "unhighlight" 
function the field loses focus and you must click with the mouse to 
regain focus. 

Any suggestions? You cannot add $(element).focus() to the unhighlight 
function because it runs on blur() so can never escape the field. 

As it works in every other browser I assume this is a Chrome bug but 
maybe there is a jQuery fix? 

I have narrowed it down to this:

highlight: function(element, errorClass) {

      $(element).parent().addClass("error");

    },

change it to and it work:

highlight: function(element, errorClass) {

      $(element).addClass("error");

    },

MORE INFO:

The difference is not specifically that the parent element gets a class but that that class sets display:block on that span.  Remove display:block from the CSS and it works fine.  WTF?